Case Study: Western Sugar Cooperative achieves a digital EHS program and improved compliance tracking with Dakota Software

Western Sugar digitizes their EHS program, improves compliance tracking

Western Sugar Cooperative, which operates four sugar beet processing plants serving about 135,000 acres of grower-owned farmland across the Mountain West, needed a better way to track environmental, health, and safety (EHS) compliance. When Director of Environmental Chelsea Villalba joined in 2018 she found compliance managed with spreadsheets and paper, leaving limited company-wide visibility and inefficient task tracking.

Western Sugar implemented Dakota Software—using Profiler to build recurring, regulation-linked compliance plans, Tracer for task execution and color-coded calendars, and Auditor for focused site assessments and self-audits. Linking tasks to regulatory requirements and SharePoint records, scheduling by role, and using Action Groups improved onboarding and reassignment, centralized EHS records, increased collaboration and visibility, and gave the team confidence and documentation readiness for regulator visits.

Western Sugar Cooperative

Chelsea Villalba

Director of Environmental